Of Dragons and Magic
by Meijis
Summary: A 19 year old modern 21st century Mage gets himself accidentally sent to Berk. Join him and his misadventures on dealing with dragons, vikings, living the ancient viking way and facing old httyd enemies while discovering hidden secrets along the way. Mages may look wise and noble but they're not immune to stupidity. (Set in 2 months after the events of HTTYD 2 )
1. Introduction

It was your typical boring day, save for the heavy raining of course, it's been raining the whole day, but none the less, it's pretty normal around here, too normal if I say so myself, ugh.. I'm bored! I need to do something exciting, maybe magic perhaps? Yup, I'll definitely do that! Why magic you may ask? Well, I guess this is the part where I should introduce myself.

My name is Martin Evenguard, Marty for short, just your everyday average 19 year old magic wielding New Yorker guy. I have a short length black spiky hair that sways to the left, I have grey eyes (although people say that it's more of a silvery grey) I have an athletic slender well-toned build, and I have a light tanned skin tone. I'm pretty attractive if I say so myself and my appearance doesn't look like it belongs to a 19 year old but more to a 16–17 year old, my height isn't also helping me since I'm only 5'6 inches (170.69 cm), the only advantage is that, I'm an eye candy! People tend to check me out (regardless if they're girls or guys). But I don't rub it in people's faces.

I'm not cocky or anything like that, I'm a nice guy, I enjoy being alone with myself, but that doesn't mean I'm an introvert, I do enjoy chatting or hanging out with friends of two or three (I don't like a big crowd). I don't have much close friends though, after school is done, I'd go straight home, most of my time is either spent in practicing the arcane arts, meditating, learning new languages, or you know, when I'm in that mood ..go to the internet and search 'stuff', and I'd be doing 'Martin's happy time', if you know what I mean. I guess I should say I'm gay.. or Bi? I don't know. I never had a girlfriend before so maybe if I had one, I'd find out.

Ok enough about those mainstream background information, let's move on to the one that caught your attention, **Magic**, Yes, I'm a Practicioner of the magical arts, I'm no master or anything, but I am an expert, let me tell you something about magic, like any other field of knowledge, not everyone can master the very essence of sorcery, which is why we are forced to specialize one specific skill set/s called a 'sphere of sorcery'. Think of it as getting a major in college, but unlike college, you are pre-destined to be intertwined with yours. As for my specialty, I specialize in Runic Magic also known as Symbol Magic.

This field of magic allows me to use symbols to cause special events to occur. It empowers and enchants the user or object to achieve a variety of abilities and effects, with a great number of symbols, this can be turned into magic which can make the user do almost anything. If you don't know what Rune Magic looks like, go watch some fantasy Animes, do you see magic circles popping out whenever they attack? Yeah, that' what Rune Magic looks like (you people tend to call it magic circles when it's so obvious that the runes are rotating in the circle), it can be cast in empty space or flat surfaces. I'm pretty sure the Magus Conclave were responsible for airing does kind of shows, just in case if magic is exposed, people won't freak out, but instead they would be in awe.

One of its weakness is that it has a time limit or energy limit, trying to bind or imprison certain creatures is the easy part (although, the size and power of the creatures does affect the binding), it's the timer you get to be worried about, you have to set the time, I can only do so far as to set it for 2 months, then I have to go back to the creature and refresh the runes, sealing spirits or beings is another thing, those things are crafty as fuck! You just don't bind them in the site you captured/fought them, you have to possess the proper container to hold them (it could be gems, lamps or weapons), and quality sealing items is so hard to find this days. Another weakness is that it has to be correctly drawn, but I think I'm immune to that, in today's modern sorcery, we don't need to draw them with the help and the discovery of the theory of 'True Knowledge' in the late 1900's, to make it simple it's a theory of using magic without the need of magical mediums (staff or wands) or incantations (ancient spells still needs to use incantations). The last weakness is that, although ancient spells are very strong, they are also the most difficult to perform and thus, this weakness is the requirement of the caster to provide the necessary ingredients/instruments for the spell to work. Ancient spells are spells of the olden days where the Theory of True Knowledge wouldn't apply since nobody actually knows how they actually work in a scientific and magical way. And so, casters are required to spend a long period of time and energy for the spell to work (this can be countered if the caster has already prepared themselves and are only waiting for it to be unleashed).

Speaking of Ancient Spells, I do know some, although it is considered as a taboo, but hey, it's a pretty nifty trick if you ask me, the guys back in the Mage's Association would think twice before making me their practice dummy (why do they hate me so much?). The spell is a magical branch called Blood Magic, it's an ancient art, we all know how important blood can be when it comes to magic, it's used quite frequently in ancient rituals since life fuels magic (what better way can you get magical fuel from than using the very essence of life; blood). No I'm not going to cut myself when using blood magic, I'm not some hormonal attention seeking battle hardened magical emo that cuts himself just to fuel magic, NO! Instead, I combined Blood Magic with Rune Magic, yes, like the 3rd weakness, I have to counter it, I already made preparations. And yes, I first cut myself like an emo posting cuts of themselves in FB then waiting for likes. But unlike them, I would pierce my artery, I need blood, and lots of them, after a quick minor healing spell, my wrist would be healed and devoid of blemishes like before. I then would use my blood to draw runes all over my body, my arms, legs (I was kinda tempted to put one on my wang just to be sure hehe), chest, my back (I made a clone of myself to do it for me and that's not the only thing my clone does for me *wink* *wink* and no it's not gay, you're just playing with yourself). After that's done, the runes turns invisible and would only show up when you use it. I could either activate the runes manually or automatically. Now, the effect is simple, absolute regeneration, you heard me, the ability to rejuvenate yourself 100% is amazing, missing an arm? *poof* arm is replaced with a new arm, mouth got magically erased? *poof* mouth is back, too tired to cast spells or you don't have enough mana to cast your ultimate spell? *poof* you get to have the amazing mana pool of a seasoned master. This is actually my most treasured spell I created to the point that I won't even mention it to my colleges (we're mages, a lot of us tend to hide original spells for the sole purpose of getting recognition and an awesome runic name for yourself, it's all a publicity stunt if you ask me).

Well there you have it, a bit of background of myself, no traumatic childhood, no arch enemy, no parents or relative deaths, no power hungry personality, just your simple ordinary every day Runic Mage who's living alone in New York.


	2. That part when everything got fucked up

I just arrived back in my apartment after class and my job as a waiter in the local diner, it was a Friday night, the whole day it was raining heavily, now don't get me wrong, I love the rain, it relaxes me, I just don't like being wet (that's what she said hehehe), finally, I could relax, I saw my bed and jump straight to it, ahh the feeling of not doing anything, it feels amazing, I didn't sleep in my bed though, just closing my eyes a bit, I was thinking of changing my clothes, I was currently wearing a dark grey jacket, a plain white inner shirt, black skinny jeans, a dark blue scarf, and a pair of black converse. "Nah, I'll change later, I wonder what's on TV today" I said out loud, I get off of my bed and went to the couch, grab the remote and turned the TV on.

Most of the shows are just re-runs, I've seen most of them, from cartoons to TV series, I switch the channel to the news, as expected, murder from Detroit, civilian opinion about President Obama, ISIS, Kim Kardashian's bubble butt, ugh.. why is the news so boring!? I turned off the TV and went straight to my laptop to entertain myself, I first logged in to my FB account, I read a lot of status like 'TGIF' or life and love quotations, I saw some girls post beautiful selfies of themselves and putting in the words 'not my best angle' ugh… not another attention whore!

I opened another tab which is YouTube and was about to type something… and… nothing came to mind, I could listen to music or watch parody videos but I wasn't in the mood. For 2 minutes I was just idling there, staring at the YouTube page thinking of something then rejecting the idea because I've already seen it. And then I thought of something! I could go to the mage's website! See what's new.

Ever since humanity invented computers and the internet, technology rapidly began to evolved, the Mage's seeing this also wanted to further develop mage craft and so with the help of German and British scientists (who are actually alchemists) made a new field of knowledge called TechnoSorcery. If Technology is the byproduct of Science, then Sorcery is the byproduct of Magic, by merging the two, the Conclave invented the most efficient tool now known to mankind, in conjunction we became masters of cyber warfare ourselves (and you know what we did to that power? Made animes so that the world would know how awesome magic can be!).

Unlike other websites, we don't put the url in the address bar, we instead let our essence feel the computer/laptop (essence looks like a colored sparkly mist when released in its untapped form) then boom! I'm in the site. The site looks like any other sites except for the discussions are supernatural based (the site looks like Yahoo! Well, the Conclave does own Google and Yahoo! so it's not called copying)

Most of the news are either new alchemical discoveries, your daily fortune from the online divination predictions, celebrity mages, Magus politics, simple enchantments for conventional everyday usage, staying fit advises from war mages, reports of alien sightings from warlocks (well that's new), and a do-it-yourself personal teleportation spells from a famous Swedish sorcerer.

The teleportation part peeked my interest, I mean, who doesn't want instantaneous transportation!? It's pretty handy! Now I can finally go to places I've always wanted to go, no more being late, and I could go home when college gets too much of a hassle (I'm an A+ student, I just don't like the part of me being bullied by the university football team). And so I decided to open the news in a new tab, the topic is centered mostly on theories and controls (even though I'm a mage, reading scientific and magical jargon is boring as hell), after reading all of the article, the next comes the instruction manual, from what I can tell, the author/sorcerer is a Rune Mage just like me from how he weaved the runic circle in perfection in the picture, an instruction says that by using this magical index and formula, the caster would be able to be transported in a 1 mile radius albeit in a slower way, meaning to say, this spell is not for combat but for conventional everyday use, well.. that's not so bad, it may be slow but it does the job done.

And so, I magically moved my apartment's furniture's out of the way so that I could use the center of the room for the spell casting and judging from the image in my laptop, it would take half the room's space, after levitating the furniture's gently out of the way, I began to walk in the center and weaved my personal magical runic circle on the floor, like in animes, mine is aesthetically well designed with my personal rune symbols turning clockwise inside and outside the circle, the circle itself is blue in color with an aqua aura hue surrounding itself.

After laying out my magic circle, I went back to my laptop to see what's the next step, the next and final step is to focus my mind for the desired location, after that's done, it says to enter the circle, so I sit crossed legged outside the circle while facing the circle at the same time, and then I focused, I was focusing to go to central park, but then I realized it was raining hard, no way am I going to get myself wet (although I could erect a ward to block the rain but I'm too lazy for that) so I though going to the alleyways in Broadway street instead (I'm in a mood for pizza ok!?). The room is quiet except for the flashing light from the lightning and the occasional booming sound from the thunder.

I felt something was off, I couldn't place my finger into it but I know something was going to go wrong, not sure when or where but I just know, suddenly, there was a city scale blackout, I didn't move since I was focusing and meditating but I was fully aware of the incident, I then heard lightning and thunder suddenly being quite active, it was a lightning storm! Guess that explains the blackout.

Unknowingly, lightning managed to strike the upscale apartment I was staying at and it hit the signal tower, various light bulbs and small appliances' fuse blew up from the sudden increase in power the objects could not contain all over the apartment, people were screaming (some screaming bloody murder since their TV got fried), everywhere in my room, light bulbs blew up, my magic circle then attracted the electricity like a magnet, my magic circle violently glowed and magically enhanced lightning lashed out of the room like an electrical magic whip, I quickly opened my eyes and do a back flip from the electrical backlash and erected my miniature magic circle as a shield. I observed that the lightning has somehow hijacked my magic circle, *sigh*...great, I just really wished this one would explode, the one thing I hate about magic is its unpredictability when influenced with outside factors.

The circle glowed brighter and brighter with a hum that sounds like it's charging up, when I felt the circle got to its final stage of humming, I strengthened my barrier to counteract the explosion and closed my eyes and braced for impact, and….. waited, then..

Nothing!? The magic circle seemed to stop glowing and the humming noise stopped, "well that was anti-climactic" I said with a nervous breath, thank goodness nothing happened, I dropped my shield to inspect the circle (and the appliances to know how much they would cost for replacements). The room was dark and the only noise I hear is the heavy rain and thunder. When I stepped in the circle's edges, it glowed again and now the hum is so much louder. I made a leap away from the magic circle to prepare what's about to happen. The electricity formed a whitish blue sphere that looks like a star above the magic circle sucking in everything that's not nailed in the ground, the vacuum was strong enough to lift me, I didn't saw anything I could use to grab on hold to, but with my quick thinking, I managed to weave a gravity rune on my body to prevent me from getting sucked in. It was going all so well at first until my drawer in front of me started tilting, my prediction is saying that it will fall on top of me unless I do something, but of course, things would always get worst, the sphere is now cracking electrical magically imbued whips around the room, some managed to whip my butt over and over again (and no it's not kinky!), I'm only protected by the runes engraved in my clothes for minor protection.

The suction effect became stronger and now, I feel at any moment, that my drawer is going to hit me hard making me lose concentration and sucking me to the sphere, and again since the universe hates me so much, the electrical whips converted into pure magically imbued electrical shocks, a few shocks hit me in my back and it Fucking hurts like hell! Now I have to concentrate on the gravity rune, enhancing the protection rune on my clothes, maintaining the privacy barrier around my room and finding a way to end this shit!

Finally I've studied the spheres essence, it feels like an ordinary teleportation spell but its energy signature is a lot more powerful, meaning to say, the distance is a lot greater. The drawer finally fell in front of me and I have to make a quick decision, let it hit me and I may suffer unconsciousness and loose the magical hold I have in the room I've been holding through concentration, or dodge the drawer and risk myself being transported in the middle of the sea or under the earth, so I choose the later and let go of the concentration I held from the gravity rune, effectively dodging the heavy drawer in the nick of time, I got sucked into the sphere and I don't know where I would end up (I'm hoping for somewhere nice like Hawaii then I realized I don't have much money in me *sigh* I hate the universe).


	3. A close encounter

"Come on Toothless!" a young man yelled enthusiastically to his partner and best friend, Toothless, a one of a kind rare dragon species called a Night Furry. "haha you're not going to win this time!" a young blonde woman yelled out to Hiccup. The two raced each other in a cold beautiful cloudy morning, today was Hiccup's break day from being a chief, for now, he is Astrid's fiancée and soon to be husband. "Just one more turn bud and we win!" Toothless made a sharp turn over an arc rock formation and with one sonic dash flew straight in the direction of Berk's Dragon Training Academy where the original dragon riders wait. Hiccup and Toothless were the first to enter the ring (like always) next comes Astrid and Stormfly. As soon as the 2 racers settled in, the group crowded them "It's a new record Hiccup!" said a chubby young man in awe "wow, I did not expect that!" Hiccup faced his fiancé "Someday Hiccup, I just let you win since being a chief takes a lot from someone" Hiccup just rolled his eyes "Why thank you for that wonderful encouragement my lady" Astrid rolled her eyes while blushing, she wasn't accustomed to be complimented in any formal way. "I bet I can beat Hiccup's record!" said a young man with a long blonde hair "What are you saying? If it's anyone, that anyone would be me" argued another young woman who happens to be her fraternal twin "No! I'll beat the record!" "No I will!" Ruffnut jumped to his brother in another dog fight. "So what now Hiccup? Me and Eret just finished the patrol, not much to look at other than the sea" "Liar, you and Eret where having an arm wrestle!" Tuffnut said while in the midst of a fight, "Well at least we did our part!" "Yeah, and when you heard Hiccup and Astrid were racing, you ditched Eret to join Hiccup and Astrid on the race then gave up because you were too slow!" said Ruffnut while trying to choke hold her brother, "Give me a break, it's broad day light! Who would attack on this part of the day anyway!?" exclaimed Snotlout. "Chief Hiccup! Something has happened!" yelled Eret, son of Eret while riding Skullcrusher hovering above the ring, Hiccup raised his one eyebrow to Snoutlout and gave him a deadpan look, "ehehehe" expressed Snoutlout awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

In record time, the original riders of Berk where mounted and are now airborne with Eret on their side "What happened?" asked Hiccup "Chief Hiccup, there seems to be a weird phenomenon happening in Itchy Armpit" answered Eret "What kind of phenomenon?" "The skies got darker probably from the violent thunderstorms, the clouds seems to be forming a huge spiral pattern in the sky" "Seems like the gods are upset" said Astrid "Well either way, we have to find out if this event may affect us in anyway, split up in groups of two, find anything that's odd, don't venture too far and report back to the canyons in 30 minutes" ordered Hiccup with a leader's tone. With no time to waste, the riders executed the command with perfect practiced motion, they already know who's who they're teamed up with, the teams would be Eret and Snoutlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs, and the last would be Hiccup and Astrid with them venturing in the deeper parts of the storm.

"Well at least the storm is finally clearing" said Astrid, Hiccup looked up, it's true, a moment ago, electricity was everywhere but thanks to Toothless, Astrid and Stormfly were safe by following Toothles's maneuver. "Thank the gods it's finally over" muttered Hiccup "Let's go a bit lower bud, I want to see how extensive the damage was" Hiccup asked Toothless with Toothless giving a low grunt noise as an approval.

Meanwhile..

"Ugh… my aching everything!" I moaned out load as I felt my body is sore all over the place, this is like that one time when I was a mere acolyte and we were having our P.T. exercise. Why is the world spinning? I've never been drunk before but I'm pretty sure this is what it feels like to have a hangover, what happened actually? I can't really tell, the last thing I remembered is me cursing the universe, and now I'm lying in my back in the woods in a cloudy morning, wait.., morning? Where am I?

I clumsily stand to see the area around me, some of the smaller trees were uprooted while others are bunt from lightning strikes, 'must be some storm', I move a bit to familiarize myself with the surrounding, even with the collateral damage caused by the storm, the forest was still beautiful, I ended up on a cliff overlooking the entire forest, the site was breath taking to the point that it made me subconsciously smile. At this point, I heard something, I freeze my body movement to focus on that particular sound, it sounds like…. big wings flapping? What animal would have that kind of wings? I hid myself on the back of a giant boulder since I don't know what I'm dealing with, for all I know, this one is looking for a meal and I'm not going to take any risk. Something landed and upon further inspection in the safety of the boulder, I saw it, it was big, huge, and black as the night (no there's nothing lewd about that description you pervs) and has a toxic green eye color, it landed softly on the ground sniffing for something, what shocked me more is the person riding it, he seems to be 20 years old for my point of view, has a brunette hair with some in the back of it of it braided, he has forest green eyes, has a lean and slender build, has a fair skin tone, tall, is dressed in a weird leather green and brown armor, and he seems to be missing his left leg, is he a hunter? If so, then I have to be more stealthy and cautious (it's ironic considering I'm horrible at doing those two).

"Why did we land here? Something you saw bud?" Hiccup said to no one except for himself, Toothless seems to be sniffing the area as if he's sure there was something, observing this made Hiccup even more guarded, his left hand reaching slowly for his flaming sword with his left hand resting in the hilt for a quick strike just incase.

Ok this is getting bad, that stupid animal is getting way to close for comfort, I did a little sneak peak on what the animal looks like, what I saw shocked me, 'a dragon, by the gods an actual dragon!' I mentally yelled to myself, dragons are pretty notorious, infamous and mythical, they wield legendary abilities, each species with their own unique way of combat. I've read each and every dragon there was and with the help of modern technology, I know what I'm dealing with here, a Night Fury, the unholy offspring lightning and death itself, 'well fuck me' I mentally said with a sigh, not only is my opponent a Night Fury, I have two opponents, great just great, that stupid dragon is getting near me and I have to do something, and so I did, thinking quickly, I weaved a minor runic spell that renders me scentless, this is pretty good spell, shame it's not very used often, I also added a vision rune to extend my field of vision, I put it in front of the boulder so that I would know what's happening behind it. Looks like the dragon is pretty confused judging from its mannerism, it then squinted its eyes in the boulder I was hiding on, 'oh shit! I forgot dragons are attracted to magic! What do I do what do I do!?' I have a mental panic before forcing myself to calm down, 'ok, breath in and out, relax and observe, relax and observe' I said the mantra over and over again until I became relaxed, I fixated my vision to the dragon, it crouched like a cat and slowly moved to the boulder, it seems like it's going to pounce on me 'quick quick quick! I need a distraction!' I panicked as thoughts of possibilities and diversion tactics began to flood my mind.

"Hiccup!" Astrid yelled landing by Hiccups side, "You found something yet?" "Not that I know of, Toothless seems to be tracking something though", "What is he tracking?" "That I don't know" "Well whatever it is, it'll just have to wait, the twins and Fishlegs found something!" with that, Astrid was airborne again heading to the location of the twins and Fishlegs, Hiccup observed and studied Toothless's movement, looks like he found something, or maybe he's just trying to catch a Terrible Terror, Hiccup then just shrug off the idea, not wanting to keep the others waiting, he called out to Toothless, "Come on bud, looks like the others found something before we did", Hiccup approached Toothless and patted his head and snout, with one last look, Toothless made a piercing gaze at the boulder and took off with Hiccup to see what the other's found.

"Oh thank the gods!" I muttered with an exhausted sigh, I slunk and sit by the boulder trying to even out my nervous breath, in all of my life, I was never really good at stealth or the arts of deception, normally, if a war were to happen, Rune Mages would mostly be engineers, other Rune Mages who have extensive knowledge of the arts of combat are then deployed in the war field acting as the groups combat engineer. Ok let me analyze the events here, I woke up in some distant land, but with the possibilities of dragons exciting, I'd say I'm not in America anymore (American dragons migrated in Europe), and upon closer inspection to the one legged stranger, his clothes doesn't seem to be manufactured by machines, there were too many uneven stitches, so I have to take in account that he or someone made it by hand, this just broaden my theory that I may not be in my timeline or I'm in an alternate timeline, another factor is that I'm pretty sure that guy is not a mage, sure, some mage have dragons as familiars but that dragon doesn't seem to have any magical traces familiars have when making a contract with the summoner, no, that guy was a rider, last time I checked that's a pretty difficult task to accomplish, not only do you need to earn the trust of the dragon, but the dragon would also need you to trust them back, which is pretty hard for humans as we tend to have trust issues, ok, this just even broaden my theory that I may not be in Earth anymore, well fuck. I know I'm capable of handling myself in this dangerous primitive world, but the daily sorcerer's week did say that if you're stuck in an alternate dimension, a different planet, timeline, or in another realm, then make the best of it and discover the countless secrets and insight you could gain, not only would it improve your upstanding in the magical community, you'd get to learn new tricks or find magical artifacts to improve your magical arsenal, so I decided then, I'm going to stay here for a while, besides, if this world does follow Earth's time cycle, then there's nothing to be worried about since the university doesn't start until summer is over and my parents won't even know I'm gone since they're always working so hard managing the Mage's Association. There's only one problem though, how am I going to live in a place like this!?


	4. Busted

Hiccup was the last to arrive at the location Astrid told him about, what he saw shocked him, the place was barren, where once great green trees proudly stood high and tall are replaced with a mere parody of a lifeless black husks, everything was burned, no vegetation existed in the area, even the soil was scotched, some of the trees where still standing while others have fallen, the dragons were sniffing and idly wondering the area. Before he could even asked the group with questions, he saw something that got his attention, in the middle of the burnt forest lies a ship, 'How did a ship managed to get way over here? Or even better, how did a ship managed to get here in the middle of a forest?' Hiccup was deep in thought while observing the wreckage, while Hiccup was mentally asking questions, the group were preoccupied with investigating (or looting) the cargo of the ship, "Wait, this ship is familiar" Astrid said in a low monotone voice "Hey yeah, didn't a ship that looked like this docked in Berk?" said Snoutlout while rummaging through various objects looking for something he can keep. Astrid saw various weapons deeper in the boat's section, the weapons were familiar, some and if not all looks like the handiwork of both either Hiccup and Gobber, putting two-and-two together, her eyes widened with revelation, she now knows whose ship this belongs to, and with that, she sprinted to tell Hiccup of the new intel she discovered.

Outside the wreckage, Hiccup was still deep in thought of the numbers of theories and possibilities of what had happened. "Hiccup!" said Astrid running towards Hiccup, drawing his attention "Hiccup, this ship belongs to -" "-Trader Johann" Hiccup said cutting Astrid off before she could finish the sentence, "H-How did you know?" Astrid gave Hiccup a confused look "Well, I remembered a week ago that trader Johann said something about getting a bigger ship for bigger stocks, when he docked at Berk, we had a talk about trading our spare weapons with exotic healing herbs, so we made a deal, he gave us aloe vera in exchange for our weapons" said Hiccup while smiling at Astrid "Aloe vera? What's that?" questioned Astrid confused and curious as to what the herb does "Trade Johann said it's pretty effective against burns, a lot of our students came from the other tribes and Berk's Dragon Training Academy is getting a bit crowded, we don't have much supplies and some students are still getting used to the idea of co-existence with the dragons".

"Hiccup I found a survivor!" yelled Fishlegs interrupting Astrid and Hiccups discussion, Eret and Fishlegs came out of the officers cabin and carried a man who has minor burning injuries from both his arms, his left leg, his right cheek and right ear, that man was trader Johann, Astrid and Hiccup jumped up to get to the boat's main deck with impressive agility and dexterity (Hiccup may have a prosthetic leg but he's agile). "Trader Johann, what happened here?" asked Astrid to the barely conscious trader, "There was fire everywhere! I retreated back to my cabin to protect myself, apparently, the fire managed to break the cabin's back window and it leaked in, the damage was not serious but it was more of an irritation really, I managed to burn myself for saving my box full of contract notes, but other than that, I'm fine" "Trader Johann, can you tell us how your ship get stranded in the middle of the land?" asked Hiccup "I was at the Arctic Ocean traveling to the Norwegian Sea to meet with my clients, I got a tip that this was the fastest route to Ireland, as I was passing this place, the clouds turned dark, lightning was everywhere, it even managed to caught my sail on fire! The sea was ragging with violent waves, then... I saw something I've never seen before, there was a rift happening in the sky!" "A rift?" "What's a rift?" both the twins interjected, "A hole, A vortex, I don't know! Something that swirls!" exclaimed trader Johann "What happened next?" asked Astrid "The blue vortex sucked in everything that was at reached! It's like a tornado except scarier and more lightning'y, my boat was lifted in the air and got hurled somewhere far away from the ocean, I'm lucky that the trees broke the boat's fall, if we crashed in the middle of a plain or mountain, I'd be dead by now!", "Thank you for that information trader Johann, Ruff, Tuff, you guys send trader Johann back home, the rest of us will salvage for anything that can be of value to trader Johann" "Oh thank you so much Chief Hiccup! You Berkians were always my favorite client, maybe perhaps after this, I could propose you a deal, I've heard cotton's price will be lowering this time of the month" said trader Johann with a cheery voice before being lifted away to Berk.

Meanwhile…

I was wondering the land looking for civilized people, 'Ok, if I'm going to stay here, I need a plan, so, I need a pretty convincing background, a previous profession that I'm good at, reasons if I were to be trespassing, clothes that's fitting in this era, basic supplies for props to make it convincing' I was thinking of so many stories I could tell and their possible outcome, I later decided to go with a nomad story, travelling the lands and making maps as a hobby, 'my profession… hmm… I'm pretty good at crafting, I'm also good at medicine, I guess I could go as either as a wood craftsman or a blacksmith with a background as a healer, as for my clothes…' I judged my clothing while looking at the clear pond, with a bit of concentration and minor effort, I used basic alchemy to transfigure my clothes to that of a medieval cloak, the cloak and it's cape were brown, simple but elegant, inside of the cloak was a fitting dirty white arm's length shirt with a brown open vest that hugs my slender yet athletic frame, a dark brown leather belt with pockets, a form fitting dark grey pants and a pair of black leather shoes, and a travelers rucksack, I looked back at my reflection again… and damn… do I look good or what!? Satisfied, I continued my deep thoughts of what kind of mysticism should I focus and to look for.

As I was walking, I noticed that this part of the woods has been burnt down, everything here is black as a coal, from the aura surrounding this place, it looks like a natural forest fire, lightning must have struck a dry branch or a dead tree setting it on fire then it spread in the forest, the damage was intense, 10 hectares of trees burnt.

As I was walking and observing the trees, when I sensed something, there's only one thing that could give off this kind of essence, a dragon (their aura smells like wine), and it's familiar, it's that Night Fury again! 'What the hell is it doing here? I though it went back home?' the dragon seems to be idling a second ago until it reached the proximity that it could sense my magic, 'great, another game of hide and seek' I mentally said with a sigh. The only advantage I got was that I could sense the dragon farther than it can sense me, I heard the dragon approaching this way, I looked at my surroundings, there was nothing big enough to hide me, I looked up to the trees, the branches were still strong, and then I found my answer, with a smirk, a quick weave of a camouflage rune and an anti-scent rune, and a big ninja leap in the branches, I was invisible to the most, of course I try to limit my magic, anything more sophisticated than that and the dragon would have detected that there was indeed magic in the area.

With me being on top of a branch, my field of vision wasn't obstructed I saw the dragon as clear as day, it seems to be cautiously walking and observing the surrounding, it would sometimes glare to even to the tiniest noise like it did back when a leaf fell in the ground, it was now right below me, why did it stopped walking? It seems like it's looking for something, the dragon was smarter than I thought, it knows that I'm here, it just couldn't tell where I am, and so it would constantly block its blind spot using a tree so there would be nowhere to attack it except from the front or upwards, which I assume its expecting. The thing about the camouflage rune is that it makes my appearance looks more shadowy and transparent, I kinda look like a black semi-transparent mist, I can also breathe normally and talk silently and none of my voice wave would vibrate the air, think of it as a bubble, now I can observe the dragon with ease. Upon closer inspection, it seems to be missing it's natural tail fin, so this just confirmed my theory that the one legged stranger was indeed a hunter, poor dragon. The Night Fury moved on to the next tree and then to the next until it was out of my field of vision, 'phew, thank goodness the Night Fury was gone' I looked at my surrounding to see if it's safe, 'the coast is clear' I mentally said and with that, I jumped off the branch then landed in my feet without making a sound and dropped the power I keep my rune turned on, looking back at the location where the Night Fury went, I walked with a satisfied smile, that is until… I got tackled by something big!

With a few seconds, I was now pinned to the ground by the… oh no… the Night Fury!? How? I saw it leave the area! How is it still here!? And then the Night Fury did something that irritated me, it gave me a shit eating grin! If this Night Fury could talk, it would be saying "I don't need magic because I'm better than you" or something along those lines, dammit! Out smarted by a dragon! I should have seen it! The clues were sloppy but it was there, it knew it was being watched, it already sensed that I was in the area, it must have felt that its prey was hiding from plain sight and won't be leaving anytime soon and so, it left the area to give off that false sense of safety when in reality, it climbed up to the top of the highest tree that was out of my field of vision glided from branches to branches and waited to the nearest tree I was hiding at, it was a simple but effective plan, and with the answers that I have formulated, my eyes widen out of revelation, it seems to understand my demeanor that I figured out what it did and gave me a sly smirk that would say "smart boy, you're not as dumb as I though", ugh, I hate that dragon!

"Toothless!?" Hiccup yelled searching for his partner, there wasn't much to salvage at the boat since most of the weapons are missing, the few remaining are now being carried by Skullcrusher and Meatlug. Toothless hearing Hiccup's yell gave off a dragon shriek pinpointing Hiccup to Toothless's location, Hiccup was quite familiar with that shriek, that shriek meant that Toothless found something and he's signaling Hiccup to go and find him and take a look, eventually he found Toothless, he seems to be on top of something, upon closer inspection, he saw it was a person. Both Hiccup and Martin's eyes widened out of surprise.


End file.
